Popular Villanova Professor Seamlessly Combines Business Experience with Teaching Approach

In Rick Anthony’s professional life, he’s often called the “Connector” because of his extensive network which has benefitted hundreds of people, including many of his students. “I’ve just been on the planet a long time,” he quips. Founder and Managing Director of The Anthony Group, Inc., a management consulting firm, and founder of The Entrepreneurs Network, a venue for early stage ventures and angel investors, Anthony is also a published author, TV host and successful entrepreneur. Anthony’s entrepreneurial endeavors have made him a particularly interesting and unique adjunct professor at Villanova University.

Anthony teaches three courses in the College of Professional Studies (CPS) undergraduate degree programs in Leadership Studies and General Studies, which are Organizational and Leadership Communication; Managing the Multigenerational Workforce, and Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Anthony calls himself a “practitioner, not a scholar” and his classes are specifically designed to be highly experiential and highly participatory, with a strong focus on recent articles, research and his own readings. This class structure makes for an extremely engaging student experience, and the demand for his classes underscores that very feature.

The first course Anthony taught was Organizational and Leadership Communication because it matched up well with his interests and experience. After that, Anthony began to develop the course on Managing a Multigenerational Workforce, which came from Anthony’s consulting experiences in the 50+ market, the millennials and building and managing human capital in organizations. The convergence of his interests turned into a dynamic course that prepares students to understand and respect generational differences in and outside of the workplace.

Anthony absolutely loves teaching the adult students in his classes, saying “I’m enormously respectful of my students who come in to class at 6 at night, after a full day of work. Their life stories and experiences are inspirational, and I’m humbled by them.” One of his most memorable students was a Baby Boomer who was coming from a fair distance to evening and Saturday classes each week just so he could graduate with his son. And he did. They received their diplomas together at a Villanova commencement.

Another favorite story he tells is a female student, with a multitude of family responsibilities, who made it a priority and successfully completed her undergraduate degree, and shortly thereafter requested a recommendation for graduate school from Anthony. It’s these stories that inspire Anthony to continue teaching.

To learn more about our degree completion programs for adults at Villanova CPS, visit our webpage.